


Neither Hold Nor Stay Your Hand

by HawkMoth



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, Gen, Minisode: The Night of the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 17:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawkMoth/pseuds/HawkMoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life, death, and choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither Hold Nor Stay Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Comments appreciated!

******

 

The TARDIS, as is her wont, takes him where he needs to be. A nearly-abandoned space station, an underground refugee camp, a spacecraft wrecked on an asteroid; places of desperate asylum in a universe rapidly running out of bolt holes.

The War rages on, and he will not fight. He is what he chooses to be, does what he always has done. Intervene. Interfere. (Centuries of breaking the rules and never quite owning up to it.) If there are lives to be saved, he will save them. And then move on before the questions start.

_If anyone happens to ask if I made a difference, you can tell them I came and went like a summer cloud._

No one's going to notice or hold him accountable now. He's just one more refugee, and those around him are too busy surviving to notice how he arrived. It only takes the words, "Can I help?" or "I'm a doctor," to distract them from details.

Sometimes he's too late, and can only witness the death throes of a planet, the fall of a civilization.

Yet still he will not fight. This is their war, not his. He is the Doctor first, a Time Lord second. A warrior never. As long as he can do good, he will.

Until it's not enough. Until Cass would rather die than accept his help; in her eyes he's no better than a Dalek, and just as deserving of death.

Hers is permanent, his postponed. Did the TARDIS mean to bring him here, to a planet so far from Gallifrey, but the one place inexorably linked to the Time Lords? Or was it nothing more than chance that sent Cass' ship crashing down on Karn?

That the Sisterhood survives, that the Eternal Flame still burns, and the Elixir of Life still trickles out of rock and stone is all thanks to him.

_Light the blue touch paper and stand clear!_

And now the Sisters want to thank him, by giving him four minutes to make a choice. 

He chose to save a few lives while millions were lost. He wanted to be the good man who would not go to war. All he ever did was in the name he had chosen. In the name of the Doctor.

A name that no longer had meaning, with Cass lifeless before him. Her choice to die.

His to live. To be reborn as something else. If Maren could step into the flame to make an ending, he can take up the goblet to do likewise.

And as promised, it hurts. More than every regeneration put together, he burns with unimagined power. The power of a warrior.

Doctor no more.

******

**Author's Note:**

> Mad thoughts derived from "The Iron Giant," the song "Kryptonite," and Classic Who.


End file.
